I will never, ever understand why parents would willingly move AWAY from their children. By choice. That's seriously messed up, imo.

We live in Alaska. BM2 currently lives an hour away from us, and is not very involved in SD10's life. She pays the state minimum in CS, and doesn't facilitate ANYTHING for SD10. BM2 just served us with a motion to modify visitation (currently she gets 3 weekends a month) because she has become engaged to a man she met a few months ago, and he has been stationed in Georgia.

DH and I couldn't be happier that she is moving, unless, of course, she spontaneously burst into flames. However, she IS throwing away any hope of having a close relationship with SD. There is pretty much no way to maintain a close parental relationship with kids that you don't see often and don't parent frequently. When they are with you, they are visiting, and they feel it.

In our case, BM moving is the best thing for SD. BM is not capeable of providing SD with any structure or even minimal consistency. Now that she doesn't have to go there on the weekends, she can participate in things that will give her advantages later in life, and she can be a full time equity member of our family, instead of being here during the week for school, and being at BM's on most weekends when the fun happens around here.

While I don't think your SO moving means he doesn't love his kid, it does look from an outside perspective like she's not a priority, or at least, not a top priority. If he isn't very involved now, it won't matter much, but if he is currently involved, a move will change that, and if I were his daughter, I would be very hurt.